


It's Called Soccer

by GinAndCats



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Act 7, Act Seven, Cute, Endgame, Fluff, Forgiveness, LATER, M/M, Post-Canon, Sad, Second Chances, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, and, for now at least, how is that tagged, idk - Freeform, its gonna be, probably more will be added, they gonna kiss tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 12:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6610531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinAndCats/pseuds/GinAndCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk has been avoiding Jake since the game ended, they barely talked on the lily pad and he'd rather live with a promise to talk again than face him and the possibility that he might never want to talk again. </p><p>A story of self-hatred, forgiveness, and all the general fuckery that Homestuck is so loved for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two Striders Isn't Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So I've been writing this out long hand because it makes it look like I'm doing work; but I wrote in my bullshit script and it's taking me forever to transcribe it to here.
> 
> Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about the ending, and I really needed me some Dirk forgiveness, and I hope you do too because that's exactly what you're gonna get. 
> 
> Thanks for reading c:

You hadn’t talked to him since the lily pad, and you had barely even talked then. It was mostly just you making a big fucking asshole of yourself, rambling about being sorry without actually offering an apology. Jake was nice though, he listened to you flounder like a goddamn fish out of water for nearly fifteen minutes. 

But you could see it on his face the moment you opened your mouth: he didn’t want to see you, to speak with you. Not after you all finally bat the game. You don’t blame him, you wouldn’t want to deal with yourself during a celebration either.

He promised that you’d be able to talk later. And that’s all you’ve thought about since then.

So for the past three weeks you’ve left him alone. You’ve kept yourself busy though; you got a sweet-ass loft that desperately needs your Strider style.

That’s actually one good thing that came out of this game. It didn’t just drop you in the middle of fucking Narnia and expect you to find affordable housing on your modest paycheck of a kick in the balls. Nah, it set you all up with some prime real estate; in the form of an entire high rise with floor sized lofts for all winning players. Right in the middle of town.

You see shit like that around, little signs that you’re still in the game. Well, you guess you always were in the game, that you only exist as a result of your ecto-whatevers scratching their game and resetting. The ‘God Tier Parlor’ being one of the nicer signs. The city you live in being named “SBURB city” being one of the more ironically horrible signs. 

The lofts are stocked (as they should be after that hell). You’ve been spending your time setting up a sweet workshop; figuring you’d try to get back into robotics. Maybe build off the horny chat bots Dave told you his Bro had made. You thought about puppets (especially smuppets) for a hot second, but after Lil’ Cal you’d rather steer well fucking clear of them for a while.

Other than a quick run outside in the middle of the night to collect equipment and cool shit to spice up your decor you haven’t been out much. At all. Despite daily assaults on your inbox by Roxy to take walks, or from Jane to grab some cake, or some other invitations. You tell yourself that it’s culture shock: you’ve never lived in a place with a lot of people. Hell, before the game you’d never so much as been in the vicinity of even the smallest group of people.

So that’s what you try to tell yourself, that it’s just culture shock. That it’s not that that you’re avoiding Jake. That it’s not that you’d rather live with his promise to speak again than face him and the possibility that he might never want to talk to you again. 

So you stay inside.

And suddenly you’re forced to remember that you left your door unlocked again.

“Hey, Bro! Or um, not Bro, Dirk. Fuck- I’m still bad at this. Teenage version of the guardian who raised me through my formative years.” It’s just Dave. For a moment your heart sped up, scared. You thought it might’ve been… someone else. You thought it might’ve been someone else.

“Yeah, I’ll accept that as a title. Bit of a mouthful though, don’t you think?” Dave lets out an amused huff and extends his fist of you to bump. Things with you two have been good, talking with him helps both of you work through some shit.

You’re glad that you happened to be hanging in the main room; it annoys you when people have to walk through all your shit to find you.

“So what’s up?” You noticed that most of your friends have been taking full advantage of finally being able to see each other whenever they want. There seems to be a trend of just going to say hello whenever anyone has so much of a thought of another person. It’s alien to you, but it’s nice. It’s also probably why you’ve been subconsciously leaving the door unlocked.

“Like everything,” You raise an eyebrow, “Don’t give me that look. You’ve been locked in here for like, ten thousand years. The rest of us have been getting our chill on and frankly, there’s not enough sugar-coated Strider ass to go around. What are you even doing in here?” 

You shrug noncommittally and pick up whatever hunk of metal and wires you were last tinkering with. As if that would suffice as an answer. 

Dave clenches his jaw, then sighs. You lean back in the couch, waiting for him to continue.

“You’re missing some pretty intense chess person action out there. I’m serious, if you thought the Mayor was cool- well you didn’t really know the Mayor- but trust me: little homie is tight. And if those monotone spheres of goodness don’t get your engine purring, then have I got the thing for you-”

“Dave.” He shuts his mouth immediately, probably an ingrained response to the authoritative tone in your voice. “Why are you here?”   
He’s barely been here five minutes, hasn’t even sat down, and he’s already running his mouth off. You don’t have time for this, well, technically you have all the time for this, but you’re just not in the mood to dance around whatever shit caused Dave to crash your loft. 

“Wow, can’t a dude just come over out of the blue and regale another dude with stories of the outside world anymore?” You run your hand through your hair, and stand up, walking into your kitchen.  
You hear Dave groan behind you, and soon his footsteps follow. Something is up; maybe it’s just your leftover heart powers fucking with you, but Dave definitely has some shit weighing on his soul. And you know it has to do with you.

You know that you’ve been isolating yourself, and that Jake isn’t the only one you haven’t so much as looked at in three weeks. You told your friends that you’ve been too busy setting up and building in your loft to answer their pesters. You thought you’d be able to get away with this shit for at least a month. But your friends never cease to amaze you.

It’s just… you aren’t ready. Talking with Dave is one thing, but you have some really important conversations that you’ve been putting off. Some since before the game even began. When everything was shit at least there was a reason to bench them… but now… if you were to spend too much time with anyone they’d want to have a heart to heart. To finally clear the air.

But you don’t know what to say, and you don’t want to hurt anyone. So it’s better if you keep avoiding them like a coward.

“Dirk…” Goddamn that cockshitting gentle tone.

“What.” You pull open the fridge door a bit more forcefully than you meant to and you hear Dave take a step back behind you.

Fuck. This is inevitable, isn’t it?

“I’ve got AJ and whatever weird-ass chess soda you brought over last time. And look, no swords in the fridge. Even though this is literally the best place to keep super pointy tempered steel.” You turn enough to see him out of the corner of your eye and his body just screams ‘eye roll’. 

“AJ.” You toss him a bottle and take a soda for yourself. This shit is downright nasty, but in that pleasant Mountain Dew kind of way. You lean against the now closed fridge and fully face him.

“Okay, you got me, hit me with your best shot, motherfucker.” He nods; and then you watch him shotgun the entire bottle of AJ like an alcoholic on St. Patrick’s Day. He wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve and then levels with you. 

“We’re worried about you." You let out an involuntary laugh. You were expecting some sentimental bullshit, but not a full blown intervention.

“Dirk, I’m serious. You’ve been locked in here since we finished the game. And i get it, I do. The game was fucking hell, and you need to have some time to process all that or whatever. But when it gets to the point that you’re ignoring every invitation to hang out, and I’ll remind you that we pester you several times a day; from me, and Roxy, and even Jane ‘hot mom’ Crocker- well, that’s where I gotta draw the fucking line.” You chew the inside of your cheek: this is what you were avoiding.

You turn your back on Dave and walk back to the couch. He follows but doesn’t sit down like you do.

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I got busy and just never made time to get out. I’m fine.” You’re lying through your teeth and Dave isn’t buying it. He doesn’t look amused either. 

“Oh really? You’re fine? Because this isn’t what ‘fine’ look like. No- you look like what happens when ‘fine’ gets the fucking pink slip from their mediocre job because his law firm got hit hard by the recession and now ‘fine’ has to go home to their pregnant wife and be all ‘sorry honey, you know how I said I’d be getting a Christmas bonus this year? Well go fuck yourself because now our family’s one source of income is gone, nice knowing you, the back will be around any day to foreclose the house. That’s how ‘fine’ you look. And don’t think I didn’t notice your shirt is on inside out."

You look down, you hadn’t even noticed. But he’s right; he’s excessively metaphorical, but he’s right. Too bad you don’t share his enthusiasm about your well-being.

“I… It doesn’t matter.” He doesn’t seem to agree with you. You think he’s about to go on another rant but when he opens his mouth he sounds way too calm.

“I really didn’t want to pull this card, but because you’re being so fucking stubborn you leave me no choice. Jake’s worried about you.” Your body freezes, hand hanging halfway to your mouth.

Jake.

It’s not fair. The reason you were avoiding him was so that he wouldn’t have to worry about you. What a royal fuckup you are. Your neck itches and you feel the urge to scratch is until you choke on your own blood.

Most of the time you think it might be better if you did. But that’d be selfish. It’s only you who’s obsessively avoiding all confrontation. It’s only you who’s making the people you love worry.

Dave seems to recognize that he really hit home. As he passes behind the couch he lays a hand on your shoulder. A show of affection you don’t try to shake off.

“Me, Jade, and Karkat are having lunch in the park today. There’s more than enough food for you to join us.” He walks to the door and you feel numb.

Before he walks out he speaks again, without turning around to look at you.

“If anyone understands self-loathing it’s me; but even I know that my friends care about me.” Soon the door closes and you’re left to silence again.

Your chest hurts.

You don’t want to think right now.

You lay back on the couch and try to sleep, the words “Jake’s worried about you” replaying in your head.


	2. Three Friends Wait In The Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk's day gets worse after Dave leaves, and he eventually makes the decision to go outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty much exclusively Dirk, there's shit tons of mentions of other characters, but it's all from the tragically beautiful mind of our prince Dirk.
> 
> It's pretty angsty and emotional, so be warned for that.
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

When you wake up, you feel disoriented. You weren’t actually able to get fully asleep, rather, you drifted in and out of consciousness. Vaguely aware of a pain in your right arm.

Wait. That’s not right. You jolt up, craning your neck to see the back of your arm. You see that it’s marked by a blossom of red.

“Shit.” Did you fall asleep on a fucking katana? Looking down you see that you might as well have. You see a piece of cut metal, from one of your projects. Still tired you wonder who would be so goddamn stupid to leave dangerous shit like that around. Oh yeah, you. You are the idiot.

You rub your eyes hard and stand up. You glance down at the couch, luckily you didn’t get a lot of blood on it. You can probably just cover it up with a pillow or something. Your shirt is a different story.

Stumbling over to the bathroom you have to kick dirty towels out of the way just to get in front of the mirror. And once you do that you have to rip down an old tee-shirt you threw over it one night when you were feeling particularly shitty and couldn’t stand to look at yourself.

When you look up you get what Dave was talking about. You don’t look fine at all. You’re in bad need of a shave and your shades hang lopsided on your face from your impromptu sleep.

You take off the shades and find you look so much worse without them. Your eyes shock even you; the unnatural orange irises singing fucking backup to the intense bloodshotedness. Not to mention you’ve got deep bruises of bags on drums.

You look pathetic. With your inside out shirt, bloodstained like half of your wardrobe. You run your hands down your face. Something has to change.

Jake.

He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to be continually fucked with by you. Your stomach boils at the thought, and bile burns at the back of your throat. Threatening to bring back up what little you had eaten.

You try to remember his laugh, how when you’d say something especially funny. Or even if you just tripped a little, something that simple. It was the cutest thing, how he’d run out of air and have to lean on you for support. You try to remember how his calloused hands would grip your shoulder until it hurt. And his smile. When he’d smile his cheeks would get those little divots. And when he’d smile for you-

Your head hurts, it hurts to remember. You try to think of anything but him. You end up replaying your conversation with Dave. Well, it was more him talking at you than anything. 

But you can still hear his voice: how fucking gentle it was, like if he said the wrong thing you’d fall apart. You don’t know what’s worse at this point: the conversations you’ve been ignoring or being treated like a goddamn wounded animal.

“Fucking goddamn cunt licking shit faced mother fucker!” You virtually tear your shirt off, your skin suddenly feeling ten degrees too hot. The screaming does nothing for you, words still stick to the walls of your lungs and make ugly poetry with every painful breath.

You crouch down, laying your sweating brow against the cool granite of the sink counter. You grip the edge hard, turning your knuckles white. The slight pain of clinging for your life is the only thing tethering you to reality. You try to keep yourself down, afraid that if you don’t you’ll do something rash like punching the mirror, and you don’t want to have to clean that up. 

Your knees feel weak and you can taste blood in your mouth.

You didn’t want it to end up like this. You hate that this is who you are. You’re disgusting, pathetic, and you sure as hell don’t deserve to have people worry about you.

Jake.

Why, what do you have to do to just get out of his way? Why can’t you just fade away, and be nothing than a bad dream. Someone he only thinks about once in a blue moon.

You did it again though. Even when you were actively trying now to, you managed to worm your way back into his life.

He is too good. He is so good and you are dirt. Not even dirt, at least a flower can be grown in dirt. It seems nothing good could ever stem from you. You manipulated him into a relationship, and abused his trust. You were possessive and overbearing and tried to monopolize all his time. You hurt him when you were just trying to love him. You were nothing but shit to him. And he was so good. He put up with you and even tried to love you back. But you hurt him.

And now he’s worried about you.

“Fuck!” You have to get out of your head. At this rate you’ll end up passed out from the aneurysm you are certain you’re about to have.

You splash cold water on you face, trying to shock the thoughts away. You inspect the wound on your arm, the bleeding has stopped and the drying blood clings to your skin like bad makeup. You contort yourself until you’re able to run the faucet over it. Trying to get lost in the pinkish water circling the drain instead of what a failure you are. 

Once the blood is cleared away the wound isn’t that bad: it’s not deep and it won’t need stitches. Not like other scars you’ve gained over the years. You briefly run your fingers over an especially prominent one on your chest, barely tickling the familiar texture. The new wound though, you can’t just leave it open. You make quick work of covering it, falling robotically into the act of bandaging. Something you’re not entirely proud you’re so skilled at.

Catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror again you wince. You can’t continue looking like this. 

So you try to shave, but you end up with a patchy job because every time you bring the razor close to your neck you had to fight the urge not to just slash it open and release the unpleasant pressure in your body.

Somehow you manage to stand in your room fifteen minutes later looking presentable. You had washed up and put new clothes on. But now you don’t know what to do with yourself. You don’t want to break down again.

There’s nothing you particularly want to do either.

Jake.

No, you don’t want to reopen that can of worms. You start walking, trying to find something the exact opposite of him.

The horny chat bots.

You pretty much sprint to your PC, sliding ungracefully into the chair. Shit, you left pesterchum open. You skim the new messages. Roxy wants you to co-write another ‘Pony Pals’ with Calliope as an illustrator. Calliope wants you to know she’s actually pretty good at drawing horses. Jane wants you to try some new dark chocolate fudge tart thing she made that actually sounds pretty good. You click through the other messages (there’s even one from Karkat, so you know you’re fucked.)

When you actually check Dave’s messages you groan a bit: 1623 unread. When you open it you see it is exactly what you would think hundreds of messages from Dave would look like. You skim the walls of red text, seeing a lot of colorful language, the entire script of that one movie where Jerry Seinfeld is a bee, and several songs typed out one word at a time. Some of the things he wrote were actually kind of funny, but most of it makes you feel guilty. The last message especially makes you want to eat a handful of batteries. 

 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 12:06 --

TG: jakes worried about you

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 12:07 --

 

The asshole. You check the time stamp, it was sent after he left your left, probably as a cruel reminder of what damage you’ve caused. In a way you don’t blame him, you deserve to be put through this after the shit you pulled hiding like a child.

You close the window, not wanting to stare at the words that are currently dismantling your mental well-being. 

You open up the program that you coded the chat bots in and start tinkering little things about it. Codes, and robots in general, have always been calming for you. Like a therapist, but without the awkward small talk and exorbitant bill. With numbers you always know how things will turn out, well, more or less. They follow the algorithm that you type, it’s nothing like people. Here, in your workshop, you know that two plus two equals four and that metal will weld if you apply enough heat. The certainty of it never fails to captivate you, like the ocean making neat patterns of the tide.

People aren’t like that; you could say the same thing to every person alive and they’d all have a different response. Hell, you could say the same thing to the same person and the response isn’t guaranteed to be the same. That kind of uncertain output keeps you on edge. You hate how little control you have, how small you feel when waiting for a response.

But here you’re safe. Here you can create, and know that what you’re creating just as you write it. Each slash, and colon, and bracket needs to be placed just right. And when you finally get everything in place- that’s when it all pays off.

It doesn’t take long for you to finish the base code, and by the time you do you no longer feel that wrong. You even feel the corner of your mouth start to quirk into a satisfied smile. It doesn’t, but it’s nice to know that it almost did. You lean back in your chair and launch the program, ready to watch it in action.

\-- chat room open --

[wittlePussy6969]: oo, im just sooooo wet  
[xXbigDaddyXx]: did someone order pizza 8===D  
[wittlePussy6969]: yaeh, w/ extra sausage ;) ;) ;)  
[xXbigDaddyXx]: well ive got some rite here, in my pants  
[wittlePussy6969]: o yea? And wut r u going 2 do with it?  
[xXbigDaddyXx]: you rlly wnat it kitten?  
[wittlePussy6969]: y daddy, my pussy aches to b filled w/ ur big, spicy sausage <3  
[xXbigDaddyXx]: my dick is so hrd just thinkin about it   
[wittlePussy6969]: all my holes wanna be fcked, my pussy hole, my mouth, and my tite, slick ass ;*  
[xXbigDaddyXx]: i want 2 go dowm on u so long that i get high off ur pssy fumes. id worship u w/ my tongue  
[wittlePussy6969]: fill me w/ ur seed plz daddy-

\-- program closed --

Well shit. That didn’t make you feel better at all. It just made you feel kind of dirty after watching that. Maybe you need to tweak the code so the bots pull content from some more pleasing erotica. Or maybe you just need to delete the whole thing and pretend it didn’t happen.

Sighing you check the time. Seems like your nap wasn’t as long and horrible as it felt, because it’s only early afternoon. The expanse of time left in the day is daunting. You don’t know how you’ll be able to keep your mind occupied the rest of the day.

For the first time in weeks your loft feels too small. And the idea of having to be alone with yourself makes you want to puke.

Your cursor hovers over the minimized pesterchum window, not sure if you’re quite desperate enough to get away from yourself.

You remember the fucking ghost of yourself that you saw in the mirror earlier and click.

Seeing Dave’s last message opens the wound again, you can feel the bad feelings flooding back into your mind. But before you start drowning in them again you make a decision. 

\-- timaeusTestified [TT] stated pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 3:34 --

TT: which park?

 

\------------------------

 

Even with your shades the sun stings your eyes. You feel exposed under the bright light; like you’re going to be ambushed at any moment. The second you had stepped outside you wanted to go back in. But Dave had already told you where they were, and that he was happy you were coming out.

He said it in a much more long winded and insulting way. But you knew what he really meant. If you were to puss out now you’d seem like a total ass.

So you’re outside.

You keep looking around yourself, like the goddamn president’s daughter checking for snipers. But instead of assassins you’re you’re looking for your friends, but with the same level of fear.

You stick your hands in your pockets and try to keep your head down as you walk. The weather is nice at least, it’s warm and not at all humid. The park should only be a fifteen minute walk from the Parlor, but a lot can happen in that time. Soon you can’t remember why you thought this was a good idea. You keep looking over your shoulder and your heart rate goes up every time you see someone wearing green out of the corner of your eye. 

Halfway to the park you even have to slip into an alleyway and convince yourself not to turn back.

But you get to the park in one piece. Looking around you spot the three of them. They sit by a large boulder in the shade. Dave and Karkat eat sandwiches as they watch Jade do a handstand.

They look so peaceful, like they’re finally getting to be the teenagers they never had the chance to be. They look relaxed. You don’t want to ruin that for them.

But before you can sneak off Dave sees you, and waves you over. You take a deep breath and steel your nerves. 

And once you’re ready, you walk over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you so much for reading!!!
> 
> Next Chapter planned for: 4/26


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